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Monday, August 11, 2014

Hello again! Woohoo, two posts in a row! :)Are you ready to get another taste of my little story? Well, here you go!Hunted, pt 2

Maddix Fischer thumped his fist on his desk in frustration. Something was wrong with Vance. Yeah, the man liked to go on hiking trips, but he never went for more than a week, and never without telling someone. Maddix rubbed the bridge of his nose with a finger. At least, he didn’t think Vance would do that.

From the beginning something about the man had called to him. Vance was funny, worked hard, and lived life with a passion that drew Maddix like a moth to flame. When they had decided to turn on their webcams - albeit without sound - during one of their talks, Maddix had nearly swallowed his tongue. Vance’s mop of dark, curly hair topped a narrowed, tanned face but his smile had been soft, shy almost, and it had lit up his dark eyes.

Maddix shook his head. All in all, Vance was the polar opposite of Maddix with his sandy blond hair, gray eyes and the pale skin of an IT geek.

He stared at the offline icon next to Vance’s name in the company directory, willing it to turn green. For what felt like years there had been a tiny red dot indicating the web designer hadn’t logged in for work, and that just wasn’t normal. Vance was dedicated, often online at all kinds of hours. Maddix knew that because he worked for the help desk and was on at all those crazy times too helping their overseas counterparts when he could.

Again he stared at the red menace. Then at the clock. Nine-thirty. Way past time for Vance to be on.

Closing his eyes, Maddix sighed, missing his friend.

“Are you mooning over that guy again?”

Through clenched teeth, Maddix replied, “I’m not mooning.” He spun in his chair to look at his cubicle mate, Allen. “I think something is wrong.”

“Right.” Allen leaned back in his chair, draping a hand over his rounded gut. “And you know this because he isn’t logging onto IM? Maybe he’s just waiting for you to get the clue?”

Maddix shook his head and glared at the other man. “We’re friends. And he hasn’t logged on for weeks. Not just days.” He frowned. Vance couldn’t be just avoiding him.

“Then why haven’t you called the police if you’re so worried for his safety?”

Maddix’s gaze snapped back to Allen.Why hadn’t he called? Was he really worried that it was more like what Allen suggested? That Vance just got bored with their talks? “You’re right. I need to call them.”

Allen grinned. “You do that.”

Maddix picked up his phone, a rift of defiance steeling his spine for the coming conversation with the police. He savored it. Needed it. The story he was going to have to tell the police would be outrageous enough if he told the truth of his connection to Vance. His gut tightened. He was going to have to lie. And some big whoppers too. He couldn’t be the IT tech stalking the IM light. He sucked in a deep breath and dialed the phone.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Good morning everyone! Long time, no see....Sorry I've been gone so long, but I'm glad to say that I'm back in the game...or at least I hope so! So today's prompt is "Just below the surface..." -- sounds intriguing doesn't it?Just as intriguing, in fact, as Hank Edwards' latest release, Repossession is 9/10ths of the Law, from Wilde City Press. You can find it here.

"Alan Baxter barely scrapes by working as a deejay in suburban Detroit. To make ends meet, he takes a job as an automobile repossession agent, and discovers his very first assignment is a car owned by his drug dealer ex-boyfriend. On top of that, a body is discovered in the trunk…by a cop. Soon Alan’s life is completely upturned as he is pulled into a mystery involving more bodies, a highly lethal new street drug, a mysterious man with a top hat and cane, raging dwarves, a house fire, a cranky police detective, and his even crankier cat!"And now, without further ado...

Hunted, pt 1It was there just below the surface. Numbness. Not the sleepy, tingly, annoying type either. It was bone deep, eating at his muscles and his will power. Painful, jarring, yet…numb. Even through Vance Henning’s exhaustion, he knew that was bad.

He continued on, moving slow but making progress. One foot in front of the other, he always faced forward, not daring to look over his shoulder.

They might be there, staring back at him. Waiting for him to falter, making the kill easier. Immediately he shut off that line of thinking. It wouldn’t do him any good to rehash those nightmares while he was still trying to escape.

Vance stumbled over a tree root, catching himself on a low-hanging branch before he could fall. He held perfectly still, pulling in the sights and sounds around him. Birds called to each other, a breeze shuffled the leaves on the trees. Nothing spoke of danger, of predators, nearby.

The forest was thinning and he prayed that meant he was getting closer to civilization. He’d had enough of the back woods to last him a lifetime. He needed concrete, traffic, noise. Food. People. A soft bed.

He stifled a moan as he imagined what it would feel like to lie on a feather soft mattress again. Every night, before he curled up in the corner on the thin blanket that served as his bed, he’d marked another tick on the floor beneath it. Counting. Keeping track of time, even as his captors mocked him, tortured him with peeks into freedom. Three weeks. That’s how long he’d been gone. He wondered if anyone noticed.

The taunting howls had stopped once he’d used the river to cover his tracks. That’s where he’d gone wrong, he figured. He had run blindly into the water, not bothering to take off his shoes or roll up his pants. It might be spring in northern Michigan, but the water was still icy cold from the long, fierce winter they’d had. In seconds his clothing had soaked through and his body temperature had begun to drop as a result.

Rubbing his hands together vigorously, ignoring the stabs of pain the movement caused, he worked to generate some level of heat. Fire was out of the question. They would see the smoke and be on him in a flash. It had been a risky move, going into that river, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret the tiny lead it had given him.

Briskly running his hands over his thighs to try to bring life into his legs, Vance thought back to the survival training he’d received while learning to hike in the mountains when he’d lived out west a few years ago. Before the sun went down again, he needed a shelter - if he couldn’t find help by then. He needed food. And he had to figure out how to get warm.

Judging by the cracks of sunlight he could see through the thick canopy of leaves, he had a couple of hours to walk yet before worrying over what he would do for the night. Vance let out a deep breath and set off again.***

I truly hope you enjoyed the beginning of my latest story...Make sure you head over to the other blogs to catch more great stories!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

What makes a reader...read? Is it the lovely cover? The author's name? I will admit to being lured in by a sexy or enigmatic cover...one that pulls at my imagination, tugs at my desire to be lost in that world. And there are certain authors - Christine Feehan, Nora Roberts, Rick Riordan, Kay Hooper - that I will buy without even looking at the blurb of the book.

But what if I don't know them?

The key to dragging me - or any reader - into a story is the opening line.

We all know these:

Call me Ishmael. ~Moby Dick

All this happened, more or less. ~Slaughterhouse-Five

You better not tell nobody but God. ~The Color Purple

Marley was dead: to begin with. ~A Christmas Carol

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. ~Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

But what about these?

The girl was just plain amazing with a knife. ~Mercy by Julie Garwood

It crawled along the air that hung heavy as wet wool over the glade. ~Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts

Swirling mist veiled the mountains and crept into the deep forest, stringing layers of white through the snow-laden trees. ~Dark Slayer by Christine Feehan

I am in awe at the emotion, the imagery, that these authors can create with so few words. So, I took the opportunity to look back at my own work...how do I measure up when compared to them?

"Benjamin." Joan's urgent whisper scarcely made it out of the little black box on his desk. ~Jack's Way

Joel Raner pushed through the front door of his family’s accounting firm, glancing at his watch. ~Chocolate Dreams

The ringing of the telephone hit Reese Andrew’s nerves like a tap on a live wire. ~Holding On

Not too bad. But I had a couple others that I wished I had lopped off the first sentence or two and started there...or even rearranged them a smidge to give a more dramatic entrance.

Since I am more of a compact writer, I've made it my goal this year to focus more on the impact of my words. I have purchased a couple new craft books and have pulled open my library to focus on the writers I would like to emulate.

So the question I have...what book do you absolutely love? And what is its first line?